


folly, folly.

by thychesters



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with an angst ending, F/M, Young Justice Season 2, don't look at me like i know what i'm doing, no i do not know how to tag things why do you ask, someday i'll post all the nice dickbabs stuff i've written for you guys but today is not that day, someone call batman the kids are fighting again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thychesters/pseuds/thychesters
Summary: The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.Barbara finds out Dick's been lying; the fallout goes just about how he imagined it would.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 48





	folly, folly.

**Author's Note:**

> you know i don't think i ever finished the second season of yj? oops.
> 
> i'm sure i'll come back and revamp everything later but until then

He’d known it was coming since the day he set his plans in motion. In retrospect, he thought it would have happened sooner, Barbara coming to him with her teeth bared, all pain and sharp words as the truth came bleeding out.

He's in his apartment, slipping on his shoes and preparing for a run when she lets herself in. At first he doesn’t think much of it, since her coming and going isn’t relatively new; there’s a spare toothbrush and a jacket hanging by the front door that don’t belong to him. Dick’s head snaps up at the sound she makes, one of duress, one he’s only heard in the field.

"You lied to me," she says, voice grounding through her teeth in a hiss, and he has little time to prepare before there’s a fist connecting with his jaw. 

It knocks his head back in a manner that would have Batman scowling and putting his training to shame, but he’s currently half a galaxy away at the moment. He snaps back to face her, holding his jaw and running his tongue along the backs of his teeth to ensure they’re all there. She’s staring at him with a look of pain in her eyes that’s quickly replaced by fire, and despite her scowl she looks utterly … miserable.

"Babs—" he manages to get out against the bruise blossoming along his jawline. The first thoughts he has are _how_ and _who told you_ , though he can’t imagine those going over well, considering her current disposition.

"No, no you don’t get to do that." She shakes her head and he can see the muscles twitch along her throat, the corners of her mouth, how angry she is and just how much he’s hurt her. Bruce had offered him fair warning prior to leaving, but it had been wishful thinking that it would have been smoother than this, that it wouldn’t hurt so damn much. Just because they may understand doesn’t mean they’ll forgive him. "You lied to me, you don’t get to get to do that."

Dick sighs and it only builds up the tension in his shoulders, in the rest of his body, in his very being. He could deflect, lie again. He doesn’t. "Barbara, it isn’t that simple."

Her laugh is acerbic.

"Oh, it’s pretty cut and dry to me, _Dick_." 

Barbara moves and he can see the pain he’s put her through, can almost feel it himself. Wally had warned him that now wasn’t the best time to entertain a relationship, especially with Barbara, and it’s come back to bite him. All her talk of how he isn’t ready, and once she decides he is, his timing couldn’t be worse. 

His jaw aches. Dick alternates between annoyance, his own anger, and that cold feeling of acceptance, what comes with a lack of forgiveness. Maybe she’ll forgive him, eventually, in her own way, and he knows it’s foolish to just wish that point was now.

"Barbara, please," he starts, and as he reaches her she takes a step back. Her head shakes again, and her arms tighten and loosen like she means to wrap them around herself but won’t give him that.

"I want to say I can’t believe this, but I can," she says. She looks away from him and he wants to tell her it wasn’t supposed to go like this. Tonight they were supposed to entertain the idea of a dinner and movie before patrol tonight. He was supposed to dazzle her with his lack of Alfred level cooking skills and then run around as Batman for the evening. That’s another cross of his to bear, one he’s never asked for, one he hasn’t wanted for years.

They’re supposed to go back to their new makeshift Cave in the morning and reconvene as they discuss their next plan of attack when it comes to the Light; he’s supposed to meet up with Wally and Artemis tomorrow evening and figure out what their next move is, figure out just how many secrets they’re going to pile up.

_The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,_ he’d heard Barbara say to Jason once, back before everything went to hell for the third time in his life. Jason had snorted, perusing the outline of the paper he was working on and told her _yeah, but not if you’re Batman_.

He’d known going in this was only going to blow up in his face, because no matter if it succeeded in gathering intel on the Light, on fending off the Reach, he was only going to burn bridges with it. He’ll burn every bridge until he’s an island, left adrift in a sea of everyone he cares for, left with his own worst enemy staring back at him in the mirror.

"I couldn’t exactly go around and tell everyone what the plan was, Barbara," he tries, because he needs her to understand. And he knows she does, in this twisted way of theirs, because as much as Bruce may mean well Batman’s methods are often warped; it’s a trickle-down effect. She may understand why he lied, but not so understanding in her forgiveness. "I just need you to trust me."

"Trust you!" she all but yells, and he can feel another mirthless laugh bubbling up to the surface. "You lied to me for _months_ , and now you want me to trust you? I can’t, Dick, you just told me I couldn’t."

The first time they’d ever patrolled together he’d stood on the ledge of the Clocktower in Old Gotham, a line in one hand and reaching toward her with the other, and he’d asked _do you trust me?_ She’d rolled her eyes and taken the line from him and said, _do I have to?_

Something flashes through her eyes and it fills him with a sense of dread because he wants to tell her _no_ , tell her _not that_.

The taste on the back of his tongue sours. Barbara’s barely an arm’s length away and she’s never felt more distant.

Her face falls only minutely, as much as she’ll allow it, and he wants, so desperately wants to tell her no, for her to understand; he’s already lost Bruce and Jason, he’s losing Wally, he can’t lose her and Tim, too.

He found her on his front step the night Artemis faked her death, where she cried until she had no more tears to shed, and then he’d crawled into bed with her until his chest ached and his body was pleasantly sore. She (and the rest of the team) mourned for a friend they hadn’t lost, he’d grown accustomed to sharing a space, to coming home to find her video calling with Wally and poking fun at him. He’s let her grow used to waking in the middle of the night with a warm body beside her and he can’t help but feel he’s taken advantage of that fact.

Dick can see the same moment it registers for her because the words gather up and lodge in his throat.

"Was all of that a lie too? Just a distraction?" It comes out as barely more than a whisper, the part where he wants to tell her no, and how could it have been, and he thinks of every time he said _I love you_ and she rolled her eyes and said _you think you do_ and then _I know_ , and how now each is tainted. 

She eyes him, searching, and he can feel the world opening up beneath him as he sinks. Now as far as she’s concerned everything they’ve had between them for the past six months is nothing but a front. He doesn’t have the words to tell her no, can’t determine if it’s better she believes that, or if it’s fighting a losing battle if he tries to convince her otherwise.

"It was, wasn’t it?" Barbara makes a small sound he can’t register, but one he can feel, and he wants to hold his head in his hands and scream because he’s tired, so tired, and he just … "You know I didn’t want to be right? I wanted so, so badly to be wrong this time."

_You aren’t ready_ , she says, and he says _I am_ , and then she says _are you?_

"It’s not like that," he says, voice as raw as his throat feels. "Barbara, please, that wasn’t—that wasn’t part of the plan. That just happened." He gestures vaguely at the space between them, the one she makes no move to close. "I mean yeah, okay, getting you to agree to be my girlfriend was something I’d planned on for a long time, you can attest to that, but that had nothing to do with this. That never had anything to do with this."

"It just happened," Barbara mutters. Her arms cross.

"Babs, when I said I loved you I wasn’t lying. When I say I love you I’m not lying now." She doesn’t look at him; his hand still hangs between them. “I never wanted to hurt you; you don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you, but I just…”

"You couldn’t." Her voice is cold. Her eyes shift and as much as he hates it, he knows she gets it.

"I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want it to go like this, and Barbara, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I can’t change this."

It’s a weak apology; she knows it, it he knows it. He might as well be apologizing for getting caught, not for his actions.

Dick knew there would be repercussions, a falling out, but _knowing_ something was going to happen doesn’t lessen the blow. There’s a huge difference between theory and execution, and the bruise on his jaw only drives home that fact. He can say _I love you_ but that doesn’t mean she has to accept that she’s been lied to. He can say he’s sorry to the rest of the team, but that doesn’t mean they’ll have to forgive him.

Briefly, just for a second, he wonders how they’ll all feel about Kaldur, then; about Wally, about Artemis, about what’s happened with M’Gann and the fact Connor knows, too. 

In saving the world he’s torn his family apart.

Dick closes his eyes, holding his head in his hands. He digs in the heels of his palms until spots of color appear, like doing so will ease any of the tension. Barbara’s remarkably quiet. It’s almost better having her know, now, one less secret to bury even if it will keep her from looking him in the eye. It’s one less secret to keep and he’ll damn himself for it.

Barbara’s quiet for a long minute, and he waits for her to lash out or try to punch him again. He braces himself just in case. Her shoulders sag just so and he watches her take a breath and then another.

"Okay," she says, even though they’re the farthest thing from it. "So what’s the next step?"

"Barbara…"

She raises her head, chin jutting out and defiant, and even in her anger he loves her, though he can’t currently think her returning the sentiment.

"Who else knows?"

He shifts and has to refrain from pressing a hand to the back of his neck where it burns. He’s already been caught in a web of lies, no sense in digging into the wound any further. He’s already soured his relationship enough, and Dick figures he’ll be lucky if he can say they’re ‘just friends’ again.

He takes a breath and her arms tighten around herself, waiting for an answer.

"Aside from the given few?" he ventures, and he can see her jaw clench. He can imagine her running through a list of their teammates, who he deemed more trustworthy, had more faith in than the woman who slept beside him most nights. He wants to remind her that isn’t that case, but that seed of doubt has surely already been planted, and his words are being taken with a grain of salt, anyhow. “Wally.”

Barbara nods, throat working, and he, again, wants to tell her no one was supposed to get hurt like this. People were going to be angry, sure, they’d all known going in it wasn’t going to be taken well, but no one was supposed to get hurt like this.

That’s always how it works though, isn’t it. No one’s supposed to get hurt and then inevitably everyone does.

Dick says her name once more, softly, in hopes some small part of him will get through to her, that he hasn’t completely destroyed what they have, what they had.

She meets his gaze again, and he can see that he’s already lost her.


End file.
